Rowing

McMaster won gold and bronze medals at the Canadian Indoor Rowing Championships, held at Mississauga’s Hershey Centre Sunday (Feb. 1). The event featured individual 2,000m races on the ergometers as well as 1,000m club four and club eight events.

(Photo: McMaster Rowing)

With 400 metres left in the 2,000m race, Brock University’s Matt Finely made a move at McMaster’s Karl Zimmermann, who dug in and held the pace through the line to secure a third-place finish in the Senior B men’s category, and McMaster’s first medal of the day.

McMaster rowers started the competition with Brynley Hanson-Wright and Myma Okuda-Rayfuse, who finished 10th and 12th in the under-23 lightweight women’s category with times of 8:07.0 and 7:59.0, respectively. Next was John Butler, who placed a respectable 14th in a field of 25 in the under-23 lightweight men’s division with a time of 6:47.9.

In the under-23 open women, Amanda Baxter and Rachel D’Arsie, placed 17th and 24th respectively, out of 31. Baxter finished in a time of 7:48.6 while D’Arsie crossed the line in 8:04.1.

The under-23 men’s open category saw eight Marauders go against 33 others. Zimmermann held second for most of the race, but fell to a last minute sprint from Brock’s David DeGroot, and so Zimmermann finished in third for McMaster’s first bronze medal in the event in several years. Logan Madill was the next Marauder through the finish in a time of 6:22.3, good enough for ninth overall. Will Staples finished 20th (6:33.5), just ahead of Ben Anthony (6:37.1 for 27th). Soon after Anthony, McMaster’s Cole Creaney and Jordan Stevenson crossed the finish together with times of 6:45.1 (Creaney) and 6:45.9 (Stevenson) for 32nd and 33rd places. Jimmy Thoms and Will Luders finished in times of 7:09.2 and 7:16.9 respectively.

After the individual 2,000m races, the club four and club eight events were staged. McMaster started with the women’s eight of Myma Okuda-Rayfuse, Brynley Hanson-Wright, Miranda Cooper, Sarah Zhou, Alice Herbert, Jessica Morris, Rachel D’Arsie and Amanda Baxter. They placed third of five in a time of 3:52.5, just ahead of Guelph.

McMaster had three entries in the club men’s four, claiming first, second and third places out of six. The first crew was Will Luders, Creaney, Butler, and Thoms, and they finished second in a time of 3:21.5. The second Mac four was Cole Riddle, Zack Demers, Kevin Guo and Pablo Mendoza, who finished third in 3:27.5. The winning crew had two current McMaster athletes, and one former Mac rowing team champion: Zimmermann and Madill competed, fresh off their 2,000m races of an hour earlier, while former Marauder Aubrey Oldham and Jared Thomson (Don’s Rowing Club) teamed together to finish in 2:58.9, setting the record for the event for the third year in a row.

The McMaster team will compete at the Leander Indoor Rowing championships Saturday (Feb. 7). They then head south during reading week for an eight-day training camp in Florida.